Innovation as the property of the interaction of diverse agents
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Complexity science shows that novel, innovative solutions arise from the interaction of diverse agents. For your team or organization, this means that you must foster interaction and communication between people who are different.
An interview published in the NZ Listener of 23 May 2009 with economist Philippe Legrain entitled “Variety is the Key,” says that “innovation comes from people with different ideas, different experiences and different perspectives sparking off each other.” The interplay of different viewpoints, ideas and backgrounds is what will lead to the kind of creative and novel ideas your group needs to be able to figure out how to do more with less, or come up with a creative solution to a problem.
Legrain says that if there are 10 people in a room who all think alike trying to come up with a solution to a problem, then 10 heads are no better than one. But if they all think differently and are sparking off each other then solutions come faster and better
- Stephen Billing
Innovation arises from the interaction of diverse agents
In studies of complexity, computer agents are programmed to interact with each other, over and over again. The computer can model countless iterations of populations of agents interacting with each other, which in the real world would take years or centuries to study
One of the most useful and interesting applications of this computer modeling of the complexity emerging from myriad interactions like this, is that the patterns that arise in the populations only change if the agents are different from each other. If the agents are the same, then the patterns repeat themselves. It is only if the agents are different from each other that new patterns emerge.
This is to suggest that it is from the interaction of diverse agents that novelty arises. Innovation or newness in these patterns, then, could be said to be a property of the interaction of diverse agents itself.
This provides an explanation for the innovative potential of multi-disciplinary teams…
- Stephen Billing
